A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 7 Number 12 - Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian Laity
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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A girl passes one of the buildings at the Jastrebac refugee center in Resnik on the outskirts of Belgrade, ahead of the arrival of Serbian President Boris Tadic, yesterday. The center gives shelter to some 300 people, mostly Kosovo Serbs, who fled their homes in 1999. PRISTINA (AFP) - Serbs throughout the UN-run province of Kosovo yesterday marked the anniversary of anti-Serb violence that left 19 dead and thousands displaced a year ago. Church bells rang in Serb enclaves scattered across the southern Serbian province as the minority community remembered the three days their villages were torn apart by waves of rioting ethnic Albanians. More than 1,000 people gathered in the Serb Orthodox church of Saint Dimitrije in the Serb-populated northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, lighting candles and paying tribute to the victims, eight of whom were Serbs and the rest Albanians. In the enclave of Gracanica, 10 kilometers (six miles) south of the capital Pristina, Bishop Artemije, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, held a special liturgy dedicated to the victims. “Kosovo Serbs are praying to God, asking for strength to endure,” he said. “We are doing our best to return all our people who were driven from their homes.” Danica Todorovic, who fled her home with her husband and 9-year-old daughter as the rioters engulfed her village, said she was still too afraid to return. “I want to return, but without security you just can’t do it,” she said. Nineteen people were killed, more than 900 were injured and some 4,000 were left homeless when Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority exploded in a frenzy of anti-Serb hatred and destruction from March 17 to 19. Several hundred houses were damaged or destroyed and dozens of Serb churches and monasteries, some dating back hundreds of years, were razed to the ground during the mayhem, the worst violence in the province since the 1998-1999 war. UN mission chief Soren Jessen-Petersen said the violence, which raged under the noses of NATO peacekeepers, “must never happen again.” “These riots cast a shadow over Kosovo,” he said.
“One year on, Kosovo has come a long way. Lessons
have been learnt, by us and by the politicians and
people of Kosovo. Clearly, we can now see the
light at the end of the tunnel.” |
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